Alabama police raid home, take money out of man's wallet over $50 of marijuana | Hacker News Reader

Alabama police raid home, take money out of man's wallet over $50 of marijuana

reason.com

52 pointswallace_f9 comments

This goes on all over the country. For every rotten officer that steals, there is a whole bushel back at the station that turn a blind eye and happily have bbqs with them on the weekends. Did you also know that when the police record an interview they do not have to preserve the tapes, the officers summary of the conversation is often taken as fact.

This is why you never say anything to an officer except, "I need to call my attorney."

If you have any kind of a discussion with an officer, they can say whatever they want, even say you confessed.

Here I am legally stoned out of my fucking mind while in my own country people's lives are being overturned on an officers subjective smelling of pot. I mean I wanna think there's more to the story. Like "OH really the dude is an alcoholic and was waving his pistol at the cop and the cop saw the guy selling pot..." Because at least if that's the situation then it's like ok the system is functional.

I can't believe how many people's lives have been ruined over this plant. So much pointless destruction.

I am not sure what makes me angrier, the abuse of civil forfeiture, or the initial breaking down a door and use of a flash bang as initial contact.

Now, this is only off of one source, but I am of the opinion that the use of a explosive designed to cause hearing and vision damage on a civilian (without any other interaction) was blatant overuse of force, and needlessly endangering the nearby public, as well as the risk of fire.

The civil forfeiture abuse is bad enough, but using an explosive device on a civilian, while flashbangs are, in almost all cases, nonlethal, the do produce sound levels that cause instant and permanent hearing damage, and can sill cause burns as well as other injuries.

I still don't understand how task forces like this can start with this kind of interaction, where a normal warrant has to be served like any other legal demand. I assume there is some special provision that is meant for use when some level of danger is expected during the interaction, and is used to "skip-past" the usual formalities used for executing warrants, that was meant to be used where extreme expedience was needed, or the persons being served were assumed to be actively hostile...

This behavior is the specific reason for the creation of the 2nd Amendment. Americans have the right to arm and defend themselves against criminal activity, and should do so if they wish to protect the livelihoods of themselves and their communities. Police are criminals if they engage in theft, and forfeit the special protections normally granted to them by the law.

Fighting back against police officers is both illegal and a death sentence, regardless of your innocence. Whether that should be the case is a matter of debate, but if you fire on police during a raid, you’re going to die. If you somehow manage to survive, you’re going to be in jail for a long time. It’s as simple as that.

Again, whether it should be this way is a matter of controversy, but that’s the way it is. As it currently stands, encouraging people to fight back with physical force against police is extremely irresponsible and shortsighted.

I don't think that retaliating against criminal theft is a matter of debate. If police behave criminally, they are subject to retaliation. This is the long sighted view, in that in the long run, fighting back against criminal behavior is a detterent against that behavior. Am I missing something here? Should we encourage thuggery and brigandry in our peace officers? Dangerous, yes, shortsighted, absolutely not.

Such a strange country.

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